Homeless
by jericho2k
Summary: Set a week after Heart. Mercedes just wants to find a way home.


Disclaimer: Don't own them, wish I did though

Mercedes walks slowly down the corridors of McKinley High, oblivious to the chatter and going-ons around her. Right now it's all she can do to keep moving, to keep breathing past the awful lump that has lodged in her chest since her Valentine's encounter with Sam. In fact she thinks to herself it's all she can do to keep _living_. Surely the human heart wasn't designed to withstand this amount of hurt and pain…but then again she supposes she is living proof that a broken heart doesn't kill you. She no longer feels like she belongs, hasn't done so really since the summer when he left. She had used Shane to disguise the awful, empty feeling that envelopes her now…back then it was only in the middle of the night that she woke terrified at the hollowness inside before she deliberately stamped the feeling back down to the depths of her soul. Strutting around the place with her divatude was all just an act…because the truth was that part of Mercedes Jones had died the day he left for Kentucky and she'd just been pretending. Pretending she was fine, pretending he was _so June._ Pretending Shane was something that he was not nor would ever be in her eyes. But now…now she feels that hollowness in every pore in her being, every minute of every day and there's no escape…she feels… well… _homeless_ is the only way she can describe it.

She has glee club next but she really doesn't want to go, not to see his face and see his gaze deliberately averted from her. That by far is the worst punishment, not the guilt that she feels at cheating on Shane, but the realisation that Sam no longer wants anything to do with her. And really who could blame him? She denied his feelings and her own one time too many and now it's too late. The realisation hit her as soon as he left his seat in the choir room that awful Valentine's Day and she wanted to yell that she had made a mistake, that she loved and wanted him. That Shane had meant nothing and that she'd been the worst kind of fool to deny all they had between them. _Just keep going, Mercy, just keep going_ she repeats her mantra for the thousandth time today…the words serving as a distraction because if she just keeps repeating them, if she just keeps saying them she will hold the tears that are always near the surface from spilling down her cheeks. She said them this morning as she drove to school, kept chanting them in her head as she sat in Spanish two seats away from Sam with him looking everywhere but her and later at the God Squad meeting where he had refused to make direct eye contact. She can't break down, just _can't_ because if she does she's beyond terrified that she will _never _stop crying, that she'll be broken beyond repair.

She reaches the choir room and stands outside and exhales, her throat burning with misery, heartache, tears and words, the words she should have said as soon as he had come back from Kentucky and now would never say. A gentle hand on her back has her turning around to face Blaine. By rights she should be uncomfortable, this is the guy that stole her best friend away from her, the one that severed one of the most important relationships in her life and right now she can't even bring herself to care. He is looking at her with compassion blazing in his eyes, as though he knows that her heart is breaking and that she is in sore need of comfort however small the geature might be.

'You ok?' and she knows that in those two little words Blaine is asking a wealth of questions about the way she is feeling here and now, about Sam, about Kurt, about the mess that is her life and she bites her lip hard. She's aware of him flicking his gaze to some point beyond her shoulder and sees him gesture to someone behind her but she just doesn't care enough to turn around.

'I just need to keep going,' she tells him dully 'If I just keep going-'he lifts a hand to wipe the tear that is slowly tracking down her face, a tear which she hasn't even realised she shed and in that one simple gesture all the walls she has built to lock her broken heart away come crashing down and suddenly it feels like _oceans _are spilling from her eyelids, and she can't stop. Solid arms enfold her and steer her away from the choir room and into a classroom and Mercedes no longer knows or cares where she is because the pain is dark, scary and devouring and it's all she can do to stay upright Blaine just holds her and she wishes more than anything that she could stop the heart wrenching howls that she is releasing into his chest.

'I c-c-can't live like this,' she sobs heartbroken. 'How can I still be alive? My heart Blaine…my heart…it feels like it's been ripped out, like there's a hole…but then I feel it beating and I can't understand it…how can it beat if it's not _there _anymore! It's all my fault…I was so stupid! I hurt Shane so badly because I was too afraid to face the truth and Sam…oh Sam…' her hands cover her face and she cries harder than she has ever cried before and in a corner of her mind she thinks when will it stop and is it possible for a single body to cry a damn flood out.

'He'll understand,' Blaine reassures her 'he'll understand…he just needs time. He loves you Mercedes, anyone with eyes in their head can see that. He just needs time to understand,'

'No!' she shakes her head wildly 'he won't ever understand! I messed so badly, I thought if I just kept denying what was there between us then he'd give up. I didn't ever want to feel the same hurt as I felt when he left to go to Kentucky. I thought that would be the worst thing ever…the thing that would break me.' She laughs mirthlessly, the sound pitiful and hollow. 'But you know what the funny thing is? This is far, far worse than that…this time it feels like I'm dying slowly from the inside out and I've got to keep going because if I just keep going… but how can I keep going? I just want to feel _home _again …'the words aren't making sense she's sure but she no longer cares as her desolate cries echo round the room.

And suddenly she feels hands gently tugging her away from Blaine, away from her support and her legs buckle and she sinks to her knees, grief pouring from her eyes. Strong arms wrap around her and she is pressed into a chest that is achingly familiar, a scent that she has never been able to forget washes reassuringly over her, and hands sure and callused from guitar playing and so _him, _hands that have known and caressed every inch of her body rub slow, comforting circles on her back and finally for the first time since he left she is home. And then she feels them, hot tears dripping down onto her head where it is nestled under his chin, sliding through her hair and in that instant she knows, _knows_ that nothing's changed, not really, not the things that count and in the ways that matter and that he's still hers in a way that he has never been anyone else's. Gentle whispers against her ear tell her that he's sorry, that he never wanted to hurt her, that it _breaks_ him to see her cry. She is vaguely aware of Blaine moving past her giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze as he leaves the room.

'I'm so sorry, Sam. So, so sorry,' she hiccoughs trying to control her sobs 'I didn't mean to hurt you…I was just so scared…I hid behind Shane and even when we broke up I still used him to push you away…because I knew that when you leave this time I wouldn't ever recover from it,' His hand gently tips her chin up to meet his eyes for the first time in what feels like forever when really it's only been a week and she sees tears, hurt, understanding and forgiveness reflected at her. She catches her breath as she recognises too the unconditional love blazing in them, the light in them that tells her she is still perfect in his eyes, and that he still wants her even after all the heart break.

'I'm not going _anywhere_ away from you ever again, Mercedes. Don't care what I have to do or where I have to go to follow you but I'm never leaving you again. Not while I'm still breathing,' he promises, his thumbs stroking her cheeks, like soft velvety paws wiping away the tears that track down her face.

'You're home,' she whispers threading her fingers, so desperately seeking to touch him, through blond hair and he smiles pressing kisses to her temple tenderly.

'I came back home for you, I love you' he tells her solemnly, frowning when she shakes her head at him. She doesn't need any more words than those, there'll be time later to talk but in the here and now she knows all she needs to know, that he still loves her, still wants her and hasn't given up on them.

'No, you _are_ home for me,' she says with emphasis and he kisses her gently on the lips.

'I figured that you were home for me a long time ago, I've just been waiting for you to catch up,' he smirks at her and kisses her, his tongue slipping easily between her lips, so strong, so sure, so _Sam_ that she wonders how she could ever have lived without it.

'I'm so, so glad I'm home Sammy' her hand slips to the point over his chest where his heart beats a steady reassuring tattoo 'I love you so much…please don't ever let me go, 'His arms tense around her and a deep sigh escapes him as hears the words that he's been so badly needing to her from her, echo in the stillness of the room. Then he smiles at her, a brilliant, blinding, _dorky _smile that makes he feel safe,adored and so very cherished.

'No danger of that Mercy, no danger of that at all.' He says holding the girl he loves with every fibre of his entire being close and thanking every deity ever known to man that after months of heartbreak and weeks of hopelessness they both are finally,finally home.


End file.
